Final Hearing fastly approaching

[dontknowwheretoturn]

Hi I'm after some advice my children were taken into care last year for suspected neglect both me and my partner were at really low points in our life and had to admit we were not coping as well as we should have been we have 5 children and have attended courses and all sorts of assessments to enable the local authority to see that we have improved our situation and that we can in fact care for our children when we initially went to court we were told it was unlikely we would have any of our children returned to our care at that point we put forward family members for all of our children only 2 of which were approved after much fighting one of my children is now placed with my dad one with another family member and the other 3 have been placed back at home with me and my partner my concern is that my family members were only supposed to have been there as a temporary measure which my dad is however my other family member is now asking for a special guardianship order to have my child permanently and is asking that all contact with that 1 child is supervised by the local authority i am distraught that my own family member could turn like that and hasn't even spoken to me about it i have found out through the local authority we are due back in court for a final hearing next week and unfortunately both the local authority and the children's guardian are backing the special guardianship application i obviously and fighting for that child to be returned home immediately the local authority have given no reason as to why my child cant return home other than they fear it would place to much stress on us my opinion is that more stress is going to be caused by having to cope with the loss of my child i am just wondering i guess if anyone else has ever been in a similar situation and what the likely hood is of the judge going against the wishes of both the local authority and the children's guardian the local authority are not even asking for care orders in relation to the 3 at home and I'm just confused if they are not that concerned about the 3 that have returned home how can they excuse keeping 1 away i am for now happy for my other child to stay with my dad as he is older and has settled well there he does want to come home but everyone is saying he will show with his feet due to his age please can someone help

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Social services have made me change my address, engaged in parenting assessments etc, give my child to his grandparents and put me through hell and back with no proof and only a child protection plan.
What i'm learning now is the way they cornered me into signing a vollentary placement to hi grandparents was wrong and that i had the right to object which they certainly didnt give me the option to do so I was made to think that if I said no, he would go to foster care and this would make me an awful mother.

I was made to remove his clothes and I did everything they asked and they still have no proof that anything ever happened to my child and it wasn’t even me under question but my ‘then’ boyfriend and the agreement was that I could never see him again if I wanted my son back which I didn’t and I cut all contact, moved house, changed numbers, don’t go on facebook!

I’m going to look into compensation for me and my family as I feel I was completely let down and that they abused their power and the meetings were always cancelled last minute, some people never received minutes of the meeting even though his real father did and he has NO contact with his father and till this day he hasn’t bothered to turn up for a meeting or for any contact. The social worker held back important information from me and my words were twisted.

If I said I felt sad and I missed my child and I cried at the meetings, I was asked if I should visit the doctor to make sure I was emotionally stable. If I agreed with everything they asked of me and didn’t query anything, I was accused of not caring or giving a crap about my child. If I said i felt I was in a position where I didn’t know what to say as the woman completing my parenting assessment asked me if I wanted a boyfriend and I said I didn’t and no I wasn’t interested. She said this was very worrying. So I felt if I had said yes I did want a partner she would of wrote in her report that I was already thinking about a man and I hadn’t even got my son back yet. So I was honest and I confessed to her that I felt she was putting me in a situation where I didn’t know the correct thing to say anymore.
I then received the outcome of the parenting assessment a few weeks later and she twisted my words to say she felt the answers I were giving to her questions were the ones I thought she wanted to hear and I wasn’t being open and honest.

Don't trust social services. Don't assume they have you or your childs best intrests and whatever you do don't give in. If they don't have proof they have to take you to court (an option i missed out on) and this will be lengthly, costly and above all they ave t gather evidence for this.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi don’t know where to turn

Welcome to the board

You have reported that you are approaching a final hearing in relation to your five children. If this is the case, it is likely that the Local Authority will have filed their final evidence (statement and careplan) by now. This will give their detailed proposals to the court, about your children’s long term care arrangements. Following this, you, the father, and the children’s guardian will be required to submit your responses, or challenge to this evidence.

You can confirm all of these facts with your solicitor, so that you are fully prepared before court .From what you say, it is likely to be a contested hearing. This usually means the social worker, either parent or the guardian will be cross examined and called to give oral evidence on oath, because no agreement has been reached about who the children should live with, contact arrangements, or any other decisions about what would be in their best interests. This can further help the court to determine the best outcomes for your children.

It is not clear how old your children are, or what their specific needs are at this time. Is it fair to assume the three that have been returned home, fall somewhere in the middle, and the youngest child is currently living with your other relative.

There are a number of possible outcomes at court. For instance

a) The three children have been reunified to your care. This bodes well and suggests the court were satisfied that you have been able to make or sustain the necessary changes to meet your children’s needs. You also say that the Local Authority are not applying for care orders. Are there plans to offer continued support to them as ‘children in need’.

b) The eldest remains in maternal grandfather’s care. Your post suggests he is older, more independent than his younger siblings, thus less dependent on adult care takers for his physical and emotional needs to be met. His wishes and feelings will have been carefully considered and once he reaches sixteen, he will effectively be able to decide where he wants to reside.

c) The situation of your last child is perhaps more complex. You state they have been placed with an ‘unidentified ‘family member who wishes to seek a permanent resolution to his long term care by way of a special guardianship order. You suggest that this plan is being supported by the Local Authority and the children’s guardian, but you are not in agreement with it. I suspect this means that your working relationship with this adult, is less positive, and one of the reasons why they may have made their decision

Have there been issues about the type and nature of contact that should take place between you, especially if they have requested the Local Authority supervise contact? In any case, if the court did grant an SGO, (dependent on this child’s age and circumstances), Children’s Services are unlikely to agree to supervise contact long term. The reason being, they would not consider this a priority, feel it would be the responsiblility of the special guardian, and would feel their resources could be better used elsewhere.

May I suggest that you speak to your solicitor as soon as possible, so you fully understand each party's position, they can take your instructions, and you can be clear what to expect at the final hearing.

Best Wishes


Suzie

[dontknowwheretoturn]

Hi Suzie thanks for your reply we have all statements and final care plans and i have responded to them my eldest is 9 and is residing with my dad and I am confident that the court will make a residence order on him i am perfectly happy with this as I have been informed by the LA that I can go to court to get this revoked after 12 months as long as it still remains what my child wants, the 3 children that are at home are my 'middle 3' and my youngest is with my relative who is my cousin we haven't got a close relationship and only ever saw each other at family events as a result she obviously never saw my children neither in the LA analysis as to why my youngest cant come home it says that she is too young to express her wishes (she is 3)' that my cousin is attached to her, that she needs individual care(my cousin has a 4 yr old and a newborn baby of her own) and that they don't know if we will be able to cope with the stress of our child along side our other 3 that are currently placed at home my child was moved to the care of my cousin about a month ago from foster care and since then despite the LA putting contact plans in place my cousin has not stuck to them and I have only seen my daughter on a limited number of occasions although when she has stuck to it our contact has been unsupervised my solicitor has been great through out these proceedings but at this stage it seems she has almost given up and it now seems we are just fighting to say that at least we tried I did ask my solicitor if I had any options if the court granted the SGO and she said not really unless the judge had acted in a way that is outside the law surely there should be something in place that gives people the right to seek a second opinion I at this stage know that I have lost this fight as the judge (we have had the same 1 all the way through) has always gone with what the guardian is saying I just feel it is unfair that I can not do anything to seek a second opinion even though in the 6 weeks that 3 of my children have been in our care we have had 1 visit from the SW and 1 visit from the guardian we have received no visits from a FSW and feel that if they had done their jobs correctly they would have seen how well we are actually doing, we are going to a contested hearing but my cousin doesn't even have to account for herself in court she does not have to attend I feel so lost I cant come to terms with the fact that I am going to lose my baby when no one has given me a solid reason as to why I feel like I am fighting against something that is invisible with no chance of winning xx

[dontknowwheretoturn]

Hi just an update and to really see if anyone can offer any advice we had our final hearing and it was adjourned due to sw being sick he is still off 4 weeks later and we are due to go back to court the LA have handed the case to a new SW who has been out in the last week and said that she can't see a reason why my youngest isn't at home already she was going to put this info in updated care plans but has phoned today to apologise and say that she has been told that she can not update the care plans and has to stick by the old SW I am so confused by all this and don't understand how the LA can do this If the new SW doesn't agree with the original care plan that the judge has ordered them to update also the judge ordered them to get my cousin to court on the final hearing and also do a statement with her to confirm her position both of which they haven't done I truly believe that they have lied about my cousin and don't want her in court so that she can't defend herself please can anyone help me

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi dontknowhere to turn

Sorry that you seem to be finding things so stressful at present. Normally, unless there has been a significant change in circumstances, it is likely that the new social worker’s care plan would be similar to that already proposed by the Local Authority. Rarely does a social worker work in isolation. Instead, they are accountable to the chain of command within Children’s Services. For instance, if you refer to the legal bundle (documents placed before the court), you will find that it is both the team manager, and service manager who have signed off the initial and final care plan, in addition to the social worker. Following on from this, most court documentation has the signature of the team manager on it? As well as for reasons of accountability, there could be reasons of having a budget holder's signature on, and a social worker rarely has access to these type of funds, as being proposed in assessments for court. What is your solicitor recommending as a way forward at this time?

Best Wishes


Suzie

[dontknowwheretoturn]

Hi Suzie, sorry it's took a long time we went to our final hearing and the judge wasn't happy with the local authority as they hadn't done any visits to confirm that we were doing OK with 3 children so how could they realistically comment on how a 4th child coming home would go. As a result of this he signed off on a residence order for my eldest and a supervision order for my middle 3 children that are at home but kept my youngest on an interim care order. He ordered the LA to undertake another parenting assessment that will take place within our home with the four children they only had 4 weeks to do this and get the report as a result of this it has been really intensive. After 2 weeks the LA had to decide if the assessment was going well enough to start overnights which i am pleased to say that it was we have now finished the parenting assessment and the new social worker is saying that my youngest can come home we just have to wait the three weeks until we go back to court and hopefully she should be home. I guess I just wanted to write and let everyone know that these things can go right sometimes and also to let people know that not all social workers are bad we have been working with 2 over the parenting assessment due to the intensity of it (visits at all times of the day for a few hours at a time as early as 7.30am and up to 8pm all of which has been well worth it) and they have been fab with us they have been honest with us have openly told us if they thought we could try something different and as a result of this we have built up a good relationship to a point where I feel that I can ask for help or advice if I need it (am just hoping that they don't put the old social worker back on to our case as he has returned from his sick leave (funny enough as soon as the new social workers were assigned) anyway just wanted to say thank you and will let you know how we go on at our (hopefully last) final hearing.

[Esme, Moderator]

Well done- that's wonderful news.

Please do let us know how things go at the final hearing.

Best wishes

Esme
FRG Moderator

[ange301126]

dear don'tknowwheretoturn, I hope the forum was of help to you. Hurray for your new social worker! Also hurray for the Judge who spotted right away that correct procedure was not being followed and the Local Authority was not doing it's duty as it should have!

[dontknowwheretoturn]

Hi, Please can anyone help me I got my babies back as you can see above but we are currently in the process of moving out of our current home and the landlord as been to see my father and stated that he will do anything he can to cause me problems, needless to say 2 days later and social services are at my door when I get home, they ask if they can come in which I agree to and they state that they are there based on a referral due to home conditions they entered the property and I advised them that my house was all packed up due to being ready to move, they stated that the house was tidy and then asked if they could see the children's rooms I stated that they could but due to moving they only have their beds in there, they said this was fine, when entering my children's bedrooms they asked where their bed linen was I advised I had taken it off that morning due to my youngest having an accident so I decided I may as well change them all and they were washed and dried downstairs and as I had only just got in and was going to sort the beds out they then said due to the referral they would need to do an assessment, I agreed to this but asked what was the point at the moment as we are in the process of moving they advised that they wouldn't start the assessment until we were in our new property. They then asked me to sign a form which I wouldn't I advised them that I didn't know what I was signing and that I would like my solicitor to look over it anyway they left the form with me and said they could collect it when they started the assessment. I am now panicking in case they try what they did last time so have asked them if I can record the assessment or hjave someone independent present. Has anyone got any advice I don't know if legally I can record or have someone present I am panicking and cant see a solicitor due to it beinf Friday night sorry for the long post hope someone can help many thanks